There is a single tear resting at the corner of Segev's left eye. I'm not sure why it's there but I gently wipe it away as though whatever caused that tear will also be removed.
Let's back up a little, just a few hours.
Segev's lips are purple. His tongue is purple. His face is blue/purple, his feet are purple. The prongs of the tube are in his nose and the oxygen is flowing at six liters. First though I placed the suction tube in his mouth, towards the side as his clenched teeth would do a pitbull proud. His entire body is locked in a staccato dance of absolute effort. He is not breathing. I dig my nail deep into the bottom of his foot though such a massive seizure won't respond to it and I call his name though he can't hear me.
The seizure breaks before I start to feel the tingling pressure in my chest build to worrying proportions, the pulling on my neck is only ever so faint.
He starts to sputter, with his lips separated but still with his teeth clenched. I gently pull at his jaw and he opens. The suctioning is easier this way and he continues to sputter phlegm.
Segev's eyes move and that tells me he is coming back towards consciousness instead of falling off exhausted. "You had a great big seizure Buddhi" I tell him, thinking perhaps he understands. The oxygen stays for another minute. He is quiet but awake.
Again we need to go back a little, to the evening, finally he was asleep and I was able to give him his last ketogenic meal without interruption. Then he woke at 10.30, which is unheard of after a day of complaining from vast quantities of air in both his stomach and intestines that I worked consistently to remove. I put him to bed at 2.30 in the morning still wide awake, I had enough and he was asleep in a few minutes, without my lullaby, after one last complaint that necessitated manipulation of his bowels by pressing.
After the seizure at 7.30 I considered a few more minutes of sleep, he seemed alright, but I needed to get started with his meds, inhalation and food in 30 minutes anyway, five hours of interrupted sleep has to be enough.
Right then he began moaning and his arms raised themselves stiff into the superman position, above his head as he lay, moving in small circles in the air. His legs jutted stiff and straight.
The last time I saw this constellation of movement and sound was in 2005, beginning sometime before his bowel obstruction. There is no need to panic, I thought, just to worry. I worked on his abdomen again, trying to move things along, feeling pockets of hardness (no, never constipation) and bubbles as well as scar tissue. Hard long scars both on his abdomen and inside, where his bowels had burst, were cut and sewn back together, minus a few pieces.
I went to get the bowel movement "equipment"; a flexible thermometer to insert into the anus for stimulation of the sphincter muscle, wetwipes and a diaper, those horribly dysfunctional diapers. Everything together helped, for now.
I wrote a prescription of herbal medicine for Segev which he received on and off for nearly two years, to counteract inflammation in his intestines and stave off further adhesions. It worked. Now we will have to return to that I suppose.
Segev's temperature is beginning to rise but the copious amounts of secretions he spits up is thin and pale, a good sign.
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